


i'm beggin' you to keep haunting me

by orphan_account



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Drinking, Ghosts, M/M, Panic Attacks, Smoking, Unhappy Ending, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 18:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17565482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Tim's not only figuratively being haunted by his past. Apparently it's literal now as well.





	i'm beggin' you to keep haunting me

**Author's Note:**

> hhh this is s o sad and i'm so sorry for writing it read at your own risk t b h   
> also, hello, i'm AnonRabbit, aka the anon commenter that's been hangin' around these parts recently   
> I GOT MY OWN ACCOUNT, MA   
> anyway enjoy the freakin' sadness

‘Everything is fine.’  
  
What a fucking joke.   
  
He tips back his drink and grimaces as the familiar burning sensation soothes his throat. The bar is obscenely loud, but that’s perfectly fine with him. It lets him ignore how loud his own head is when everything else is silent.  
  
He’s been trying. Honest. He moved far, far away. He got a new therapist and psychiatrist. Got a job that while he doesn’t love, he doesn’t necessarily hate going to either. He’s even started talking to some of his coworkers.  
  
He doesn’t dare get close to any of them, but it staves off some of the deep, aching loneliness. Takes the edge off, so to speak. How he wishes with everything in him he could try to make friends again and live some semblance of a normal life, but he’s afraid.  
  
He’s so absolutely terrified of spreading this again. All of his friends are dead because of that thing that follows him around. He hasn’t seen it in quite a while, but he’s still paranoid. He doesn’t think he’ll ever not be paranoid after what he’s been through.  
  
He finishes his drink and debates getting another. His head is pleasantly fuzzy and he could probably get away with one more without getting too messy. While he enjoys getting buzzed to let his head swim a bit, he’s terrified of getting anywhere near blackout drunk. Too many risks involved with that. Getting a little out of his head is fine, but he still desperately needs to be in control of himself at all times.  
  
The decision is made for him when some girl starts to walk up to him, a gleam in her eye he knows all too well. He considers straight up telling her he’s gay and leaving it at that. With where he is, though, that might end in a fight.  
  
He ends up politely declining her advances, making up a quick lie that he’s married and, oh shit, he was supposed to be back home an hour ago! He runs out of there before she can respond.  
  
The bar isn’t too far from his apartment, so he walks. He digs around in his pocket for one of the cigarettes he knows is there. He didn’t bring the whole box so he wouldn’t chain smoke it all in one go, but he did stuff two in there for his walk home.  
  
He fishes out the lighter as well and the first drag is heaven. His heart had been pounding from the encounter with the woman hitting on him and the smoke entering his lungs calms him a little, slows it down to a more reasonable rate.  
  
Normally his hands shake when he smokes (or does anything else for that matter), but when he’s slightly drunk like this, he’s surprisingly steady with them. Funny how that works.  
  
When he arrives back at his apartment, it’s entirely silent as per usual. He briefly considered getting some sort of small animal for companionship. With his luck, though, he figured the poor critter would have to deal with getting haunted by that thing as well.  
  
Since he still doesn’t know a whole lot about it (and doesn’t want to know, he’ll ignore it for the rest of his life, dammit) he isn’t sure if its reach extends to animals or not. Best to stay completely alone to be safe, even if it hurt him to his core.  
  
Sometimes he doesn’t know why he continues on. Grief and guilt plague his every waking moment and he can’t even confide in anyone about it. Every now and again, he debates hopping back on the Marble Hornets twitter account and talking to the people there, but he always shoots it down. He’s done talking to them, done having them watch all this. Whatever they say or do wouldn’t comfort him anyway. He knows this, but he’s so fucking lonely, the thought still crosses his mind rather frequently.  
  
Part of him wants to drink more, but most of him knows that’s a bad idea that will end in a panic attack. He checks the time on his phone. It’s 11 pm, which is a perfectly suitable time to go to bed. It’s actually probably a little late, considering how long it generally takes for him to fall asleep.  
  
With a heavy sigh he makes his way to his small bedroom. It’s relatively bare. He didn’t have much while he was on the run and he didn’t bother replacing most of what he lost when Alex burned his house down. Some of it’s paranoia that he’ll have to run again. Most of it is that he just doesn’t see the point anymore.  
  
He methodically undresses and flops down in the bed.  _Shit_ , he thinks to himself. He sits back up and reaches over to the small safe he’s got on his nightstand. He punches in the code and it reveals his medication when it opens. While he’s all too aware Brian is dead and won’t steal it anymore, it’s become a habit since he moved.  
  
The mere thought of Brian being dead brings a wave of emotions to him so intense he feels like he’s going to vomit. He doesn’t think he’s capable of getting up and getting a drink to take his pills with, so he dry swallows them with a wince.  
  
He shoves them back into the safe and wills himself to stop thinking about his first real friend that he’ll never see again. With another shuddering sigh, he collapses onto his back and shuts his eyes. With any luck, he’ll fall asleep relatively quick tonight. The bit of alcohol floating around in him tends to help with that somewhat.  
  
—  
  
He wakes up rather violently what he presumes is a few hours later. He has no idea what’s woken him up. Did he have a nightmare and just doesn’t remember it?  
  
His whole body freezes when he hears several loud crashes from his kitchen. Not a dream then. Normally he hates hallucinating but he’s hoping and praying that he doesn’t see anything when he goes in there.  
  
He still sleeps with a knife under his pillow, so he grabs that before tip toeing his way towards where the noise was coming from. He’s still good at being completely silent when his life is on the line, so he knows if anything is there, he’ll hopefully catch it by surprise.  
  
His heart races in his chest and he’s biting his lip so hard he starts to taste blood. As he gets closer, he notices the temperature seems to drop. By the time he actually gets to his small kitchen, he’s  _freezing_.  
  
With his trembling hand that isn’t holding his knife, he flicks on the light. He’s relived it works, but the relief is instantly replaced by sheer terror when he sees what lies before him.  
  
Cabinets are thrown open, plates and utensils litter the floor, and there are even a few broken glasses on the floor. He grits his teeth and grips his knife tighter. All his senses are now on high alert.  
  
‘Who the fuck is there?! I’m armed!’ He calls out. No response. He shivers from both the cold and the sense of dread pooling in his stomach. He wants to throw up but he can’t do that right now. Has to focus on whatever did this. He can throw up once he’s safe again.  
  
He searches the whole apartment top to bottom and finds absolutely nothing and no one. It sends him into a panic and,  _oh_ , there’s the vomit.   
  
His eyes are shut tight as he heaves into the toilet. He starts hyperventilating once he’s done hurling up his guts. His eyes fill with tears and he sobs loudly while curled up on the hard bathroom floor. His whole body shakes and he’d give anything for someone to just hold him.  
  
He thinks of Jay’s arms around him and shitty motel beds and shuts that train of thought down real quick. He doesn’t need that on top of whatever’s going on now.  
  
He thinks of some of the exercises his therapist told him to do when he gets anxious. Blinking back his tears, he starts to name things he can see around him in order to ground himself.  
  
He sees the weird little nubs on the ceiling. His eyes drift over and he sees the sink faucet. He sees the sink itself. He looks up at the mirror then over to the medicine cabinet. He turns his head and looks at the clips holding up his shower curtain, the curtain itself. It’s a relatively plain one. Black with white polka dots scattered all over it.  
  
He focuses on all of this instead of whatever horrifying shit just happened and focuses on breathing deeply. Slowly.  
  
After a few minutes of this and naming other random things he can see around him, his heart rate seems to be back down to an acceptable level. He’s still shaking a little, but it’s mostly just the aftershocks of throwing up so much. He flushes that and uses the sink counter to pull himself back to his feet.  
  
Cleaning up the mess in the kitchen needs to be his next task. He knows this. He swishes around some mouthwash until he can’t taste the vomit anymore and splashes some warm water onto his face.  _I can do this, I can deal with this_ , he thinks to himself.  
  
The temperature is back to a reasonable level when he walks back out there and starts to mechanically clean everything. He tries not to think too much about what this could all mean.  
  
—  
  
He decides to dust off his— _Jay’s_ —camera after this happens a few more times. It’s not every night, but it’s starting to become more frequent. He doesn’t know what else to do at this point. He’s not going to post the videos anywhere, but he needs to know what the hell seems to be so angry in his apartment.  
  
It doesn’t feel like what was bothering him before. While it feels familiar, it’s not in the sickly way that thing makes him feel. This sort of familiar makes his heart ache. He always seems to think of Jay whenever he’s cleaning up after it, and it’s starting to make him suspect the worst.  
  
Considering everything else that’s happened in his life, he’s not stupid enough to dismiss the possibility of ghosts. He wants to be sure. Needs to be sure.  
  
A morbid sort of nostalgia hits him when he sets up the camera on his kitchen counter. Countless memories of setting up in their motel rooms bombard his brain. He knows now that his loneliness is getting to be too much because, by god, he really has the audacity to miss those times with his friend.  
  
 _‘Everything is fine’ indeed_ , he thinks to himself. He turns the night vision on and hits record before making his way to his bedroom.  
  
Before he can even make it there, he feels something hard hit the back of his head. He groans and feels rather dizzy for a few moments, leaning against the wall in his hallway. Evidently that’s a bad idea because something else hits him in the back then, so hard that he falls to the ground.  
  
He briefly thinks about how he’s stupid for not bringing his knife with him while he set this up, but what would it have done, really? He can’t even see whatever this is (he has his suspicions but he won’t, he  _won’t_  confirm that in his head unless he sees it with his own two eyes).  
  
His head is throbbing and his vision is too blurry for him to stand up. Pain is exploding through him and he groans again, mostly in annoyance more than anything this time.  
  
With a deep, shuddering breath, he stands back up on shaky legs. The world around him seems to be rolling around and he hopes to god he doesn’t have a concussion. While his insurance is good, he still can’t really afford to be landed with any hospital bills at the moment.  
  
He tries to look around, but sees nothing out of the ordinary. Whatever this is threw his cheese grater and his whole entire blender at him. It’s probably broken considering how hard and far it was thrown, but he can’t really tell at the moment. There are more pressing issues at hand.  
  
He ducks when he suddenly sees his whole knife block whizzing towards him. Strange. All the knives are taken out. Somehow that doesn’t reassure him considering his suspicions about what this entity is (he’d like to think however mad Jay was at him when he was killed, he’d never want Tim dead). It seems to just want his attention.   
  
A bitter laugh bubbles out of him at that and he races towards where the camera is. He picks it up and starts whizzing around trying to catch a glimpse of something, anything out of the ordinary.  
  
A few more utensils and appliances fling themselves at him and he has to maneuver around them, but he eventually catches it.  
  
He  _cannot_  breathe. There’s a lump in his throat and his stomach drops in a way it hasn’t in quite a long time. He wants to scream, but nothing will come out. Hell, he can’t even move. He’s stuck in place, staring through the camera at what he now knows has been haunting him.  
  
It doesn’t look entirely like Jay. The eyes aren’t right (they look so dead, which he guesses is because he is, in fact, dead) and he has this faint glow around his whole body.  
  
He looks up and he finds he can only see him through the camera lens. A bark of a laugh leaves him before he can stop it. How fitting that the ghost of his old friend can only be seen through a fucking camera. So morbidly poetic.  
  
Jay opens his mouth to try to speak, but what comes out is nowhere near words. It’s an absolutely horrifying wailing sound that raises the hair on his arms and neck, chills him to the bone. At the same time, it makes him ache and squeezes at his chest. He sounds like he’s in so much pain. He knows part of that is his own fault and he hates himself for it.  
  
Since his friend can’t seem to talk to him, Tim tries talking to him instead. He gulps down the fucking rock in his throat and wets his lips before speaking in a soft, shaky voice. ‘I’m so sorry.’  
  
Ghost Jay doesn’t seem to react, which makes him think that he can’t hear him properly either. He tries again anyway.  
  
‘Jay, I…I cant begin to tell you how sorry I am for everything.’ He continues.  _Maybe he can hear me_ , he thinks.  _He’s not throwing anything at me anymore. Maybe that means he’s listening_. He decides to continue on. He’s got nothing to lose at this point.  
  
‘I think about you all the time. I miss you so much. I can’t…I can’t…’ He trails off, overwhelmed by the sheer force of the guilt gnawing at his insides. The ever familiar grief threatens to drown him. He’s hyperventilating again and feels like he’s choking on his emotions.  
  
Jay is still just looking at him with an entirely blank expression. It’s completely unnerving. He almost wants the rage back, wants him to start chucking his things at him again. Anything that’s not that horrible lifeless stare.  
  
He comes closer and Tim’s entire body tenses up. He’s not sure what to expect and he’s sort of terrified. Jay’s arm lifts and Tim flinches, expecting to be hit.  
  
Somehow what he actually ends up doing is worse. His hand hovers over Tim’s cheek like he wants to gently caress him the way he used to during his panic attacks. The physical contact of someone he loved so much never failed to bring him back down to Earth. Jay pulls away as he seems to realize he can’t exactly do that in this form.  
  
He supposes now is as good a time as any to admit that love part. His biggest regret has always been never telling him that. Yet he finds when he tries to speak, nothing coherent comes out.  
  
He simply crumples to the ground and starts crying. The camera’s still recording, but he can’t see anything through his tears. Sobs wrack his body and he’s practically screaming, which surely is bothering his neighbors at whatever god awful time it is. He doesn’t think anything would be able to stop him, though, short of knocking him unconscious.  
  
He wants to keep screaming until his throat is raw and bloody. He wants to cry until nothing more can physically come out of him. He wants to curl up and disappear entirely.  
  
 _Pull yourself together,_  he thinks.  _You have to tell him, you have to tell him now that you’ve got the chance_. He fights to focus entirely on his breathing. In, hold for ten seconds. Out, hold for ten seconds. Over and over again until he’s only sniffling every now and again.  
  
He wipes at his eyes and picks up the camera again to see Jay. More panic shoots through him when he realizes that he can’t see him anymore, even through the lens. That must mean he’s gone.  
  
He manages to not have a full on meltdown by telling himself that he’ll get another chance soon. Surely he’ll come back.  
  
Yet throughout the next few weeks, he doesn’t get a single visit. He stops hearing noises at night and his camera he still leaves in the kitchen picks up absolutely nothing. There’s not so much as a temperature drop when he wanders in there in the middle of the night just hoping for a glimpse.  
  
‘Everything is fine.’  
  
What a fucking joke.  
  



End file.
